Cathie Wood Reacts To Atai's Drastic Stock Plunge After Doomed Clinical Study Results

After atai Life Sciences ATAI shared the results of subsidiary Perception Neuroscience’s Phase 2 trial of R-ketamine compound for TRD, the psychedelics biotech’s stocks plummeted.

The closing stock price on Jan. 11 was $1.72, more than 90% below its IPO price from June 2021 when the company went public on the Nasdaq. 

The situation naturally caught the eye of major investors like Cathie Wood’s ARK fund, which had consistently invested in atai since February 2022 and sold  922,367 units between Jan. 9 and 11, 2023. 

Nonetheless, Wood’s fund still owns over 4 million atai shares. 

Neither the fund nor its president has publicly announced whether it will sell off more atai shares but rather commented on other companies within the tech sector.

On the other hand, ARK bought 82.924 shares of COMPASS Pathways CMPS during that same time period. COMPASS made news following its successful Phase 2b clinical trial on psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression.

COMPASS and atai have several things in common, as noted on the latter's website. Although separate companies, development partnerships like these are common in the psychedelics space.

Another example: atai gave a $3 million fourth and final term loan tranche to its scientific partner IntelGenx Technologies Corp IGXT following the company's amended and restated secured loan agreement.

Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by anaterate and sergeitokmakov on Pixabay.